Why do a lot of men seem to think it's 1954 not 2024?

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I have been on here for a while and it seems that women seem to be expected to do the bulk of child care, housework, have jobs and manage everything to do with the house from renewing tv licences to employing all trades people.
In real life I know several men like this. They work, have their hobbies, go to the pub, have weekends away with the lads.
Of course I also know men that pull their weight. But child care and housework seems to be women's work.
Why does it get put up with?
Is it because their mothers did everything for them?

Im male but have always discussed and agreed with my wife who does what. Until a couple of years ago I worked 70+ hours a week at this time of year so she did most things. I'm retired now so have a nice cleaning rota, manage her business accounts but still have time to see my mates etc...

I suppose I'm asking aibu for asking why their isn't a fair balance in most partnerships.

It's a hundred percent because their mothers did everything for them growing.up and they only saw dad go to work and mum stay at home and look after the house and children. My partner works full time, he insists that I don't need to work and my job is to take care of the house and the baby and do pretty much anything he asked to do without complaining..very old fashioned, and we aren't even old. We are early 30s. My partner works.but around the house and childcare he is lazy and does practically nothing. His dad is the same and.his mum insists it's her fault because he never had to do anything or have any responsibilities. I'm not too happy about it but I get to watch my son grow up without worrying about financing and missing anything through being at work so I put up with it.

In real life I know only 1 couple like this.

My partner does his fair share in the house / with the kids with the exception of the early days when I breastfeed. However in those early day he took up the slack elsewhere.

Most of my friends partners are very engaged, share the load. 2 of the dads stopped working to look after the preschool kids. I am in my late 30s

I agree with @Notsogood24

The entitlement is very ingrained. My DH is completely comfortable with me doing all the washing, cooking most meals, most of the washing up, all of the tidying and everything school related. He is amazing at DIY, manages finances and mows the lawn. We both work full time. Most evenings I’m still cleaning and tidying until bedtime and he is relaxing on the sofa. I am too weak to stand up to him as I know it will end the marriage. It’s pathetic, I know.

Zawn Villanes argues that it's a form of abuse. Essentially men and women from birth get messages that men's time is more important then women's and that work in the home is women's work. Often it can feel quite subtle before kids. It's manageable to do the lion's share of tasks at home and for the couple to pretend that things are equal because he does very occasional outside jobs and DIY and puts the bins out once a week. Once kids arrive the work multiplies and so does the inequality. Maternity leave is great but doesn't help. The mother is now typically getting a lot less sleep because her sleep is less important because 'he works', as the primary caregiver she can struggle to get any time away from the baby as the child 'just wants her' and she takes on the mental load of researching and buying things the baby needs which he typically has no idea about or doesn't care about. She has less income and is often expected to contribute on an equal basis to household expenses. Or he might expect her to do everything at home even at weekends because 'he works hard and needs a break'. When she goes back to work her job is somehow less important and she is the one who needs to take time off when the kid is ill. So it's narratives around the primacy of paid work and the primacy of men's paid work in particular which excuse various forms of male entitlement. I think it's also a significant cause of the gender pay gap because it reduces women's ability to focus on their careers.

I don't think I know any men like that.

I know OP, I was shocked on a recent night out to hear that:

• One woman had a husband who never puts the washing machine on. He's also never got up in the night to feed their (bottle fed) baby. The baby was born at the start of December

• Another woman had packed her husband's suitcase for a lad's weekend away 'because he's a bit useless'. They have no kids, own a home and both work full time

• Another woman does all cleaning because her boyfriend is 'crap at doing it'. They rent a flat together

All of these woman are mid 20's to mid 30's. They all looked at me a bit blankly when I commented that it sounds like these men need more practice to get the hang of things

Surely you're meant to be a team, and keeping the home sorted and tidy is just showing consideration for each other? I wouldn't expect my partner to clean the house each week whilst I sat on the sofa with my feet up, so why would I expect the same treatment in return?

I honestly don't know why women put up with it! Any woman who works full time, should sit down with her OH the minute they decide to live together, and discuss how they're going to split the chores at home. If you both work full time, then you both do half of the housework etc. Unfortunately, there are a lot of lazy, entitled men out there, and equally, a lot of women who are too afraid to stand up for themselves, but if that's the case, why move in with them in the first place? Makes no sense to me, and I'm a woman. My DH on the other hand says that he's ashamed to be a man for the vast majority of the time, as men seem to be the cause of all the troubles in this world.

I've met two couples who had a baby in the last ten years where the dad had never changed a single nappy

Someone who makes himself unavailable by working 70 hours a week can be just as bad!

YANBU. We need to start raising our daughters to prioritise themselves and their ambitions in the same way life is already geared toward boys and men.

At the moment large swathes of females are still brought up to ‘be kind’ and serve others. This leads them to the kind of warped thinking that being some sort of perfect Stepford/Hinch housewife is everything and the fact that their husband is useless and selfish is just the natural order of things.

My DH isn't like that at all . If anything he does the most housework and gardening out of the two of us tbh . I don't know why women put up with it .

It's a bit like saying you don't know why women put up with abuse. The male partner is clever enough to do just enough at the beginning and subtly change the goal posts over time especially once the kids come along. They bank on it being financially and emotionally difficult to leave once there are children involved. And will continually shape the narrative to make it seem ok e.g. he does jobs outside and she does inside and this is somehow equal despite inside taking about ten times the time. Or her standards are too high so she may as well do all the cleaning. Or telling her that she just needs to tell him what to do and he'll do it, and then when she makes suggestions tell her that she's nagging or that he'll do it later and then never does.

I definitely think in marriages where there are children it can stem from the mat leave. My and my friends' relationships are all between relatively equal partners, graduate jobs, working full time and a pretty equal split of domestic roles until the woman has 6-12 months off on mat leave. Naturally the day to day house stuff falls to them and all kid related admin too. Somehow that balance doesn't reappear when the woman goes back to work. My ex was willing in theory, but I was the one plugged into the local mummy network of toddler groups and so on. Id taken the DC's to their first swimming lessons so knew the drill. It was just easier to carry on as we were and I suspect that happens a lot.
Of course some relationships are never equal, a fully embedded assumption that it's not a mans place to do x. I don't think DIY and mowing equates to cooking and laundry..they are weekly at most whereas cooking etc is literally endless.

Because women put up with it and enable it.

They get away with it therefore they continue to do it.

@nutbrownhare15 that is just terrible. I hope they aren't proud of this fact.

You can see why a lot of modern day women are stressed to the hilt with poor mental health.

I am childfree, but I only know 2 or 3 couples amongst my 30 something friends where I think their is a 'fair split' of the domestic and childcare load based on working hours etc.

I also am far to weak to stand up to him as it's just not worth the hassle and the "I work, you don't" saga

With you on that. I guess it’s not quite as bad (at least they are earning not lazing on sofa or in pub) but it’s definitely an ethic of “my career is too important to be troubled by domestic responsibilities, yours isn’t”.

You admit yourself that you used to be out of the house more than double the time you needed to be. Why did you do this? Who was looking after your kids and doing the house work while you were working 30 hours extra every week? Why did they put up with that?

DH had a toddler tantrum tonight as I didn't feel well and he had to cook the last part of his tea by himself... I'd already cooked the veg/potato for him, all he had to do was fry a steak. He made a huge drama (so I'd go in and take over) but I put my earplugs in so I couldn't hear him. He's still sighing to himself about the complete injustice of it all If I could turn back time, I'd never have taken long maternity leaves because I became the default adult in the marriage.

What I don't get is why the 1954's men succeed in getting married, never mind a woman who knows what he is like and then decides to have children with him. It blows my mind.

I want to print this out, frame it and put it up on the kitchen wall.

Men do this because women let them. And why women let them - that’s a very different question…

Funny how the 1950's morals on male sexual behaviour is conveniently forgotten...

As a pp says, many of them start out as fairly 50/50. I was adamant about equal division of labour before we married and in the early stages of marriage. Then it slipped a bit after child 1 and after child 2 it seems we are now in a 1950s marriage, except where I also work and get paid more as well. It’s a gradual slide. What is interesting is how DH is completely settled in this and is hugely resistant to anything domestic other than a bit of cooking and sometimes shopping. No one sets out to marry a lazy misogynist.

I couldn't be with a man that can't or rather, won't look after himself and his home. Nothing would give me the ick faster. One of the most attractive things about DH when we met was how self-sufficient he was, how tidy and clean his flat was, and what a good and attentive father he was.